Somewhere In Between
by Abigail-Nicole
Summary: Even into the most secure of places, someone always slips through the cracks, and at Hogwarts, the results are disastrous. The only one who has the key is Lily Evans, but how will James Potter change things? Rating for violence
1. Prologue

**Somewhere in Between**

So these two Animagus and one werewolf walk into a bar...

But I'm getting ahead of myself, again. I'm not very good at telling stories...scratch that, I'm not very good at telling anything. I always seem to trip over my own voice and stumble and the idea I had that originally seemed so brilliant seems to just sort of fall apart in words and then I get all discouraged and don't want to say anything at all and end up sounding like a complete and utter moron. 

Not like Arabella. Arabella was always self-confident, flirting, had witty things to say, and could somehow make a stand for Greenpeace while finding a hot guy in the process. It was kind of depressing, really, the way she alway fell for Sirius and they just got together _snap_ just like that. And here I am, stuck watching her, alone, unwanted. 

Okay, scratch that, too. Not always unwanted. But it was James Potter. 

I have no idea how I ended up getting the most popular, spectular Quidditch player, the hottest guy in the school--scratch that, the hottest guy in the _world._ And he's mine. All mine. That's enough to make a redhead smile. Even if I did have a bad experience trying to go blonde. 

See, there was this first year that was an Metamorphagus...

But there I go again. Starting off into the middle of nothing. Tonks only has to do with the reason I made my hair blonde, and has nothing to do with James and me getting together. Besides, James took one look at me and his face turned purple with trying not to laugh, so it lasted about all of three minutes before I was back in my dorm, crying at a well-meaning, accident-prone Metamorphagus who convinced me to go blond and was back to red hair in three minutes. 

Of course, it turned out for the best because James told me later (when I was sitting in his arms on the couch) that he loved my red hair and he kissed it and all was good--order was restored. And I never tried to dye my hair again. 

But there I do it again--jumping right into the middle of the story. I guess I really shouldn't tell the story, but there's really no one else to tell it, because only I knew all the facts, and only I saw everything that happened and fully understood the horrible thing that happened back then. 

It was back when Voldemort was in power, and it seemed like Hogwarts was safe. But you know how even when you totally lock the car, a bug always manages to creep in? The same kind of thing happened. And I guess it was for the good, because it brought James and me together, but in a strange way it was the worst thing that could have happened to us. 

It was a girl, a Gryffindor called Carrie Haver....


	2. What, Where

**Somewhere in Between**

**One**   
What, Where

What happened was that Nikki Harfield was murdered. 

I guess I'm jumping into it again, but that's about what happened. Nikki Harfield was pretty, blonde, popular, chattery, annoying, and generally a prep. You get them in every group. No one really liked her but her preppy friends, but still, nobody really wanted to kill her. Sure, she was annoying, but that's just the way preps are. So it was really messed up. And it wasn't just a murder, no, she was lying on the floor with an X cut into the side of her neck and the knife still in her heart. Lovely. Cold-blooded murder. 

Of course, it all began when Alicia Silverstone started screaming. It was about nine o'clock at night, and everyone was still down in the common room because if was, after all, fifth year, and O.W.L.s generally suck. Alicia Silverstone is short, happy, slightly nasally and slightly naseua-inducing. She acted like a tourist _all the time._ And she was melodramatic, given to screaming, so usually no one would have paid any attention. But this wasn't even Alicia Silverstone, that you could tell--it was a sort of high, unearthly shriek that seemed to go on and on and on forever, wailing in on your ears. 

Of course, we all started to run towards the dorms, half the boys falling back down as they tried, the others wisely waiting for the girls to run up. The first one up was Theresa Madding, who was generally a good, level-headed person, and as soon as she entered the room, she turned around. "Oh my god," she whispered, her face turning pale before she ran to the bathroom. Sounds of retching could be heard. 

I was only a step behind her, and the same instinct rose in me, bile rising in my throat as I put my hands over my mouth. Wanda Hopan and Kelly Amea stopped in the door, both of them looking like they were going to be sick. "What is it?" some one yelled. 

"NIKKI!" Kelly yelled, her mouth twisted in disgust and horror. Kelly Amea was one of her other preppy friends. "NIKKI!" 

"WHAT?" someone shouted. 

"Nikki...Nikki's been murdered," I said, barely above a whisper. It raced through the crowd like wildfire. 

_"Murdered?"_   
"Who's been murdered?"  
_"Nikki Harfield?"_  
"Who murdered her?" 

"Someone get Head Girl," one person in the back said, who obviously had more sense than the rest of us. "Someone get Dumbledore!" 

The Head Girl was Ariana Lyson, a very sensible, little bit strict brunette who immediately did the sensible thing, which was to clear the room. She told Alicia Silverstone and me to remain, as Alicia was the one who had found her and I was the only witness not puking my guts out who had actually seen firsthand. She sent a prefect scurrying after Dumbledore, and in five minutes Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall both were in the common room, running up the stairs, which allowed Dumbledore access. Sirius Black tried to run up after him, but failed. 

"Who is it?" Professor McGonagall asked crisply before entering the room. Ariana shook her head. 

"Nikki Harfield," she said simply, and Professor McGonagall nodded. When she and Dumbledore entered the room, there was a horrified silence. Professor McGonagall's face was turning ashen, and her entire body was quivering with fury. The twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes was gone, and now cold fury seemed to radiate from him. 

"My God," Professor McGonagall murmured under her breath. "Who...why...to a student!" she finally exclaimed. Dumbledore stood up sharply. 

"Minerva, close the castle. We must see if anyone is on the grounds, have Hagrid talk to them. Have all the students moved to the Great Hall, and have no one touch this room, not even the House-Elves. Miss Silverstone, Miss Evans, you will remain here. I believe Miss Amea is nearby?" he asked, and I nodded in confirmation. 

"She's in the bathroom, Professor," I said, and Dumbledore nodded understandingly. 

"Bring her here, Miss Evans. We must speak immediately. Have all the girls in that dorm room remain in the common room." 

Professor McGonagall left the room with barely a nod, her face still pale. My mind was racing. Nikki Harfield had been killed. Who had killed her? Was it from the outside? Someone _inside Hogwarts?_

"Girls, please bring Miss Amea and come with me," Dumbledore told us, and waited as I ran to get Kelly from the bathroom. Her face was in her hands, and she was kneeling on the floor. 

"Kelly?" I asked, and she barely raised her head. "Dumbledore wants to see you." 

Kelly barely lifted her head; tears still glistened on her cheeks, her face still ashen pale. "Who was it?" she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Why?"

I didn't have answers. "Come on," I told her reassuringly, and she followed me dumbly to the hall. Dumbledore went down the steps to the common room, where he sat down on one of the couches. 

"Miss Amea, I believe you were in Miss Harfield's dorm," he said gravely. "Can you tell me anything about Miss Harfield? Who was in there last? Would anyone want to kill her?"

Kelly gulped nervously and Alicia put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Nikki was studying, Professor," she said tremblingly. "She didn't like the common room, she said it was too noisy, she said she wanted to study alone. I had gone up to get my Aritmancy book just before Alicia screamed. She was by herself, and no one wanted to kill Nikki!" 

Dumbledore held up a hand. "How long was it from when you got your Arithmancy book to when Miss Silverstone screamed?" 

"About ten minutes," Kelly answered nervously, pausing for a shuddering breath. "Why, Professor?" 

"I cannot tell you as of now," Dumbledore said gravely. "I had hoped things like this would never happen. You may go down the the Great Halll, Miss Amea," he added gently, and Kelly stood up, gulping again as she almost ran out of the portrait hole. 

"Miss Silverstone," Dumbledore said, addressing Alicia. "How did you find Miss Harfield's body?" 

"I was going back up for my Charms book because I'd just finished Transfiguration homework," she said breathlessly. "Kelly had borrowed it and said it was in her dorm, so I went in there to look. It was horrible, you could almost smell it in there, I screamed right away. Made me sick, it did, with her neck..." Alicia trailed off, her eyes wide. "I'd told her, sir," she said in a knowing sort of voice. "I'd told her that she shouldn't study alone, who knows what will happen, I told her...."

"Thank you, Miss Silverstone," Dumbledore said gently. I rolled my eyes. Alicia had never told her anything of the sort; the girl would lie and everyone would be putting her in the spotlight now. Just what she needed; more attention to swell her head. 

"Miss Evans," Dumbledore said gently. "What can you tell me about Miss Harfield's relationships--her friends, her enemies, and please be honest. Your opinions may be very useful to me." 

I met his eyes. How had he knows that I would know about Nikki? But it was true; almost all the girls came to me when they had problems or something to gossip about. It's downright boring sometimes, I can tell you right now. But I always smile, repress a sigh, and never tell anyone. I don't remember half of it, but Nikki's gossip was always particularly juicy. 

"Most of her friends were in her dorm, Professor," I said neutrally. "Kelly Amea was her best friend, but she had other friends. Alicia was one of her friends, and Wanda Hopan, Teri Fields...and Nik, Nichole Blankenship," I added belatedly. "I don't think she had any enemies. Some people...disliked her," I said, pausing, then the pause lengthened. 

Dumbledore leaned forward. "Miss Evans, it is of utmost importance that you tell me your honest opinion of Miss Harfield. I know it is not polite to 'speak ill of the dead' but I must know." 

"She was a prep, if you'll excuse me," I said bluntly. "She was a snob and a lot of the girls didn't like her. She had money and was always showing off all the new stuff she had, just to make people jealous. She never treated anyone very nicely either, she was always gossiping about them and calling everyone skanks. She flirted, too, Professor," I added. My opinion of her seemed very biased at the time. 

Dumbledore seemed to smile just a fraction. "And what of boys?" he asked, his eyes grave again. 

"James Potter," I said bluntly, disdainfully. Then my eyes widened. "They...they fought last night, in the common room," I said, my voice horrified. "It was terrible, screaming and yelling on both sides....she was screaming she'd kill him, and he tried to hit her, but Sirius held him back," I said, my voice still horrified. "Sir--"

Dumbledore held up a hand to silence me. "Miss Evans, do the girls talk to you? Do they confide in you?" 

"Yes, sir," I said truthfully. Dumbledore nodded. 

"I may need you to stay here and help me question some people. You also have underground information, if it can be called that, that may be useful to me in helping determine the killer." 

"Do you think it's someone inside the school, then?" I asked quietly. 

Dumbledore met my gaze and held it. "At this point I am eliminating no possibilities," he said quietly. A shiver ran down my spine. 

* * *

**Disclaimer:**(sing it)  
I own Nikki Harfield and her dead body   
I own OCs and my own little plot-bunny I don't own Lily and Marauders too  
But JK does, so please don't sue!  
(insert 'Shave and a Haircut' tune)_Da-da-da-da-da, dan dun!_

**Notes:** Disclaimer applies to one too. This is fun. I actually have no idea what I'm doing. I sit down at my comptuer and my muses guide me. Thanks for all the reviews! Don't worry, James next chapter. Hope you like it, love you all.  
=}Abby 


	3. Shades of Blood

**Somewhere in Between**

**Two**   
Shades of Grey

Well, from then on everything pretty much sucked. 

The whole problem with the thing from the beginning was that no one even suspected Carrie Haver. She had never really liked Nikki Harfield, but nobody really noticed that because no one really liked Nikki Harfield except her preppy friends. But still, that didn't give her a right to murder the girl. 

There I go again. I should tell this like a mystery story, and have the murderer hidden until the end to be revealed with a great deal of suspense like they do in the Agatha Christie books that Sirius is always borrowing from me. Yeah, Sirius likes Agathat Christie, go figure. But since I just gave it away, I figure that there's no point in prolonging the inevitable. 

There were really only three people that knew _everything._ And that was me, Carrie, and Nikki. So that leaves it up to me to tell the story, and I'm never good at that part. But the scary part of the story wasn't really the murder, or the letters, or even the part when I was up at the wall with a knife at my neck and blood trickling down the side. Trust me, that was scary as hell, but the worst part was inside her mind. 

But there I go again. The morning afterwards was horrible, of course. That was all the students talked about all day long, and Alicia's ego wasn't being helped any by the hundreds of people, all questioning her in awed voices about Nikki's dead body. She got over her disgust real quick, and I think she took a kind of sick pleasure in the whole thing. 

But James, poor James, he had it the hardest. This was before he ever knew me, to be sure, but I felt kind of sorry for him even then. Suspicion was pouring over him from the rest of the school and nobody wanted to talk to him. He and the rest of the Marauders were at the table that morning, all clustered together with serious looks on their faces. That was strange enough---usually they were surrounded by hopeful fangirls or at the center of some crowd, laughing their heads off at a prank. They were so caught up they even forgot to turn Snape's hair into toothpaste (a bi-weekly event, with a different Transfiguration each time) that they had planned very loudly in the common room before any of this happened. People edged away from James, and I even caught myself wondering.

What had happened? Where had James been last night? Sure, he supposedly couldn't get up the girls staircases, but it was no secret that James was star Chaser on the Gryffindor team, and his Nimbus 1000 would have no problem floating up to the windows. And Nikki's room did have windows. 

"What's James's alibi?" I asked Theresa Madding as I slid into a seat at the opposite end of the table. She frowned at her apple and took a bite, chewing viciously and swallowing before she answered broodingly. 

"He said he was at Quidditch practice. They caught him just as he came in the front hall, about twenty minutes after it happened. Sherry Anbience demanded to know where he'd been, and he just said 'Quidditch practice' in this bewildered tone of voice."

I glanced over at her, dark curls falling into her face, set in a brooding expression. She had gone out with James for two weeks in third year. "Can the team vouch for his alibi?"

"He was alone."

I groaned as Alice Remerta sat down beside Theresa. "Hey Lil, Teri. Is it true?" she turned a skeptical glance on me. "I may be a gossip columnist, but I refuse to believe half of this crap."

I sighed. "Too true, Alice. I saw it. And don't you dare start anything," I added, glaring at her. I hadn't really trusted Alice since she printed a rumor about me and Sirius back in third year. Alice only grinned at me cheekily. 

"First rule, Lily. Everyone' s a target. So is it true that James killed her, then?"

Theresa spoke up suddenly, stabbing her fork into her eggs. "Would you just chill, Alice?" she said angrily as she pushed her plate away. "They're going to be enough rumors without you adding to it."

"I just print the truth, Teri. Hey, how do you feel about---?"

"No," Theresa said firmly. "I will not continue this anymore than it has been. Forget it and move on. And don't call me Teri," she added as she slung her bag over her shoulder, stalking away.

I smiled and mentally congradulated Theresa. Alice had given her hell about being a James-Fling-of-the-Week and she was too sensitive not to take it personally. Alice looked at me and opened her mouth, but I pushed my half-eaten plate back and grabbed my back. "No chance," I said before I followed her out of the hall. 

But it wasn't easy to keep a smile on my face through Double Potions, with Grimay being as horrid as possible. He kept making snide remarks all through class, and it didn't help that we were brewing a poison meant to make a creature retch its guts out. 

I couldn't concentrate. The potion was supposed to be emerald green, poison green, but mine had turned scarlet. I had no idea why, and staring down into my cauldron, I suddenly saw fresh blood, poured out into my cauldron, blood that had belonged to Nikki Harfield--

I stepped back abruptly and my foot hit my cauldron, sending the contents spilling across the floor, where they hissed menacingly and began to make a sound like acid on human skin. My hands clutched at the flask I had just removed, not even corked yet, and I blinked before grabbing my wand and cleaning it up.

Grimay took twenty points from Gryffindor for "Evans's clumsiness and inability to correctly brew a simple potion" but I barely noticed as I corked my flask and set it on his desk, next to the orange and green liquid filled ones that insured I might not fail. 

Outside the classroom, I leaned back against the wall and took a deep breath, closing my eyes before I felt someone watching me. Opening my eyes, I saw James Potter standing about three feet away from me, staring at me with an odd expression on his face. I stiffened.

"All right, Evans?" he asked, and there was a slight note of concern in his voice.

"Fine," I said shortly. How could he be standing there so calm when he had threatened to hit Nikki last night? How could he be so calm when he could have been the one that killed her?

He looked at me, half-indignant. "Good," he snapped and walked off. I took a deep breath and headed off hurriedly to Transfiguration. 

It seemed like things were going wrong for everyone. Kelly Amea started shaking during Transfiguration, deathly pale, and Wanda Hopan had to take her to the hospital wing for a Calming Drought. Alicia Silverstone was staring into space all of Care of Magical Creatures and was quieter than normal, barely speaking three words. The grotesque picture was lingering in everyone's minds.

Everyone but Carrie Haver. 

* * *

**Disclaimer:**I own Nikki Harfield, Theresa Madding, Alicia Silverstone, Alice Remerta, Carrie Haver (sadly), and all those other peeps. JK owns Hogwarts, Lily, James, Peter, Sirius, Remus, teachers, etc. You know the drill.

**Notes:** Whee, it's not abandoned! Sorry so short. I finally posted Ask Moony at FictionAlley here if that works. If it doesn't, go to my bio and click on the link there. It'll be at least a week before next chapter, because I won't be on my home computer. Sorry all, love you! 


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